Another month goes buy and we get more video game sales data from NPD.  This month's break down goes as followed for console hardware:

Nintendo Wii: 519K (5 million total)
Nintendo DS: 458K (13.6 million total)
Microsoft Xbox 360: 366K (7.1 million total)
Sony PSP: 286K (8.8 million total)
Sony PlayStation 2: 184K (39.4 million total)
Sony PlayStation 3: 121K (1.9 million total)

The quick and dirt analysis is that the Wii is back in the top spot with an increase of 18,000 units over last month.  The Xbox 360 saw a drop of 162,000 after the stellar September boosted by the release of Halo 3.  The PS3 saw a minimal increase of 3,000 units and the PS2 saw a 94,000 unit drop, 43% less than last month 31,000 unit drop from last month. 

Now to pre-empt this release, Sony's CEO Howard Stringer came out and announced that the PS3 sold 100,000 units in their first week after the $399 price cut in the US.  He went on to heard this as a "breakthrough" for the PS3.  This truly is good news for the PS3 faithful out there but lets not start sucking our own dicks patting ourselves on the back quite yet.  Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality posts an excellent retort to Sony's response by noting that sales always double from the previous month in November.  The post goes on to show historical data to prove the fact so I won't bother here.  So if you sold 40,000 per week in October you should sell 80,000 per week in November.  If the PS3 is only selling 20,000 more per week more then expected and you double the sales then really all Sony did was increase their sales by 40,000 per month.  So instead of selling 120,000 per month they should be selling 160,000 per month going forward.  I guess you can be happy you're selling more console but your still in last place.

Microsoft has to be disappointed that the Xbox 360 sales have dropped off as much as they have.  Everyone knew that Halo 3 would move hardware in September and that on October there would be a drop in sales but a 30% drop was higher then expected.  It really goes to show that most people that played Halo 2 had already made the transition to the Xbox 360 before Halo 3 came out.  So far Halo 3 has sold to over half of the Xbox 360 installed base in the US.  Still with the holiday ramp up Microsoft should see their lead in the US market hold strong. 

What can you say about Nintendo?  The Wii and DS print money!!!  This is the second straight month the Wii has sold over 500,000 units in a month.  The only question is Nintendo get enough product to market to mean the holiday sales ramp up.  If Nintendo can get one million units to retails in November they can easily sell those units.  If Nintendo can get two million units to retails in December they can easily sell those units too.  Are 95% of Wii games crap?  Yes but consumers don't care.  They want to get their Wii before little Billy's friend Bobby's parents can find one.  Mark my words the Wii is a god damn pet rock!

Sources:
dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2007/11/console-post-of-week-october-npd.html 
www.joystiq.com/2007/11/15/october-npd-wii-ds-dethrone-xbox-360/
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/15/sony-says-ps3-sales-increased-dramatically-wont-reflect-in-npd/